Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Smallholder Producers of Farming Products Supply to Tourism Business in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Everything is changing at a breakneck pace now. Most specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a remarkable impact on the tourism business sector and its indirect beneficiaries all over the world. The smallholder farms were the important linkage existing in the agricultural value chain and tourism sector. The exploration of impacts and the specific issues due to the effect of COVID-19 on the smallholder farmers who engaged with the tourism business sector is expressed in this chapter. The increased price of inputs, selling the products, and transportation were the prominent problems during this crisis. These issues lead to increased cost of production, and declined farmer revenue and profit significantly in respect of pre-restriction of tourism in the country that emerged from the pandemic. This phenomenon caused cyclic unemployment, diminution of economic and social wellbeing in farming society, evidenced from the East-cost of Sri Lanka. However, it could be ensuring the sustainability of these smallholder farms until the recovery of the tourism sector in Sri Lanka via establishing new policies on farm input subsidy or the ceiling price on agricultural inputs.KeywordsAgricultureFarmTourismCoronavirus